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Makes me wonder if Lorne Michaels and Co. knew about the lip sync in advance or whether they were surprised as well.

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When will America wake up and get sick of these just-add-water disposable pop stars that the music industry churns?

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One of them, Matt Chaimberlain, is one of the best rock drummers I've seen, and he has to play on crap like this.

Matt Chamberlain also did drums for Lisa Marie Presley, Christina Aguilera, and even played on Rosie O'Donnell's "Another Rosie Christmas." So I'd say the man is willing to bang the skins for anyone who'll pay him a decent buck.

One of the best you've seen? He's certainly a very good drummer (I love his work on the last few Tori Amos albums) but I've never heard of him talked about amongst the very elite. You sure you're not thinking Jimmy Chamberlain of Smashing Pumpkins fame?

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Look, he's a studio drummer. If you were playing drums for a living, and didn't have a big-time band that you were a part of, you'd have to make a buck somehow. Besides, if you're a studio drummer, I'd imagine you have to be good.

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But if you'd see them live, you'd see he's an incredible drummer.

Didn't I already say he was very good, and that I loved his work on the last few Tori albums?

Not sure why your tone is so defensive... As far as I can tell, we're in violent agreement here, and you seem to have repeated several of the things I said in my post using slightly different language. I was just making sure you had the right guy, and you do, so that's groovy.

And thanks for the AllMusic link, it's not like I had to go there to find out he played for Rosie O'Donnel or anything...

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Really? I just take that as another sign that personal responsibility is a dead concept in this country.

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Yeah, that's actually what I was meaning to say. It seems no one is ever at fault for anything. It's really amazing anything ever goes wrong with everyone being so perfect and all.

Not really, with all those other idiots out there screwing it up. Only I'm perfect.

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It's not the first time I've seen a big-name artist get caught in a lip synch.

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Many other times I've seen artists on SNL who I was certain were lip synching even when they didn't make a mistake.

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Don't dis your band. No matter what you do in the music business, don't dis your band, you stuck up little rich kid

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Aimee Mann's voice for the song "Time Stand Still" is done as a backing track. It's fatally embarrassing when it goes bad

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I personally have been on stage in front of an audience when something goes bad.

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remember when they used to use a giant floating head projection of Aimee on the back video screen?

Yeah, that's the MTV music video of the song. According to the Rush FAQ, Aimee's voice was supposed to come directly from the audio track of that projected film. And if the film gets desynched, Alex is supposed to step over during the choruses and trigger her voice samples from the keyboard he had tucked over Stage Right.

I can believe this, as I was at one of the concerts where the video got desynched, and I saw Al step over and handle it. I was up high in the nosebleed seats to stage right and could see the teleprompter monitors they had on the stage next to the monitor amps, and they do a little fimstrip-countdown of that backing film on those monitors, and the band is supposed to start based on that countdown, and they'd missed it.

I've also seen the song "Manhattan Project" go bad, where the middle-bridge string section (which is all one long digital sample triggered by Geddy pressing a key on his keyboard) got desynched really badly. The band kept playing right through it, and the sound guy scaled back the volume of the string section, though left it playing for continuity and fill. Sounded bad, but at least the song didn't stop. And if you look at the "Hold Your Fire" videotape, at that moment in the song where the sample is supposed to start, you see Ged look very intently at his keyboard as to not miss the cue, and also look quickly over his shoulder at Neil so they get eye contact and synch up on the downbeat to start that sample.

I've also been told a great story about the drum machine part on Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" from a friend who also happens to be Don's drum tech. I'll save that for another time.

But anyway, that's all a digression because that's not talking about lip synching. My point is that they're smart enough to only do the backing tracks as "extra bits" and to let themselves trigger the start points, because they know how bad things look when a backing tape goes wrong or when an underpaid roadie doesn't get the cue right.

Oh, yeah, one of those particularly embarrassing moments I mentioned earlier? One of them was when I ***WAS*** the underpaid roadie who was supposed to trigger the backing track from offstage. Me and the drummer didn't synch right, although I *did* make eye contact with him, I guess we just weren't on the same wavelength that night.

Having seen and been involved with those situations enough times, as an artist I will always resist putting myself into a situation where I need that kind of thing. I'd much rather embarrass myself by singing poorly or forgetting chords and lyrics than to completely ruin the performance with a technological train wreck.

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So are you implying that Ashlee is a "big-name artist" ?
...I thought she was just one of those flavor-of-the-month here-today-gone-tomorrow flash-in-the-pan pre-fabricated pop constructions that wouldn't have even made a big enough impact to qualify as worthy of a Jeopardy question ten years from now.

Unfortunately, these days, your description is the definition of "big-name artist".

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I personally have been on stage in front of an audience when something goes bad.

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Each time such a thing happens, it's a painful, scarring memory that makes me cringe to remember it.

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Why would she blame the band anyway... i'd imagine there's a sound guy who queued up the wrong lyrics who's to blame.

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- Being a musician and performer, I understand the technical reasons why someone would do a lip sync on a show like SNL. But most of those reasons can be overcome with practice and professionalism, thus not requiring the lip sync.

I guess in April at the Teen Choice Awards, Ashlee did a true live performance and it was very terrible. I guess the critics tore her a new one for it (which is surprising actually). So it looks like she decided to "play it safe" on SNL.

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Matt Chaimberlain, is one of the best rock drummers I've seen, and he has to play on crap like this.

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Yeah, losing a pick or breaking a string during a performance are real tough. Had that happen enough times. Both situations are tough even when you've got backups on hand.

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But yeah, the lie and inflation of "artists" has been going on forever.

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NEW YORK (AP) - Singer Ashlee Simpson gets another chance to sing live - perhaps - on national television Monday after walking off "Saturday Night Live" in a does-she-or-doesn't-she lip-synch moment.

Simpson is scheduled to perform in Las Vegas for NBC's "Radio Music Awards," scheduled to be televised at 9 p.m. ET.

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I've blown tons of strings in concerts, and usually the issue is more tuning than not being able to hit the notes. Of course, I do more strumming than soloing, so I only have to compensate in a few places. But the tuning, that'll kill ya.

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I saw a guitar competition TV show where one of the contestants was playing a fretless guitar.

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appropriated yet another violin in order to finish.
[...]
it was her American debut (New York Philharmonic if memory serves)

Thanks for the clarification. From the source I read, I couldn't tell if it was one string twice, or two strings on one violin. So I just naturally assumed the most impressive case. Not that it wasn't extremely impressive in any case.
Especially at only 14 years old!

Also, according to that source (Snopes) it happened at Massachusetts' Tanglewood Festival.

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An interesting thing in the article: it was the drummer who was to cue the song. Why you should make that his responsibility I have not idea, but there you go.

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Maybe the bass player didn't translate the instructions for the drummer correctly?

Heh. Actually, it's very common for the drummer to trigger backing samples and loops and such, since it's his job to play in synch with them.

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Ahhh well, apparently this was the first time she'd even used backing vocals. Apparently due to acid reflux. Who knows if that's true or not?

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Anyone have an excuse for this?

We used to be Brits once upon a time?

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Funny, I think your definition of 'now' needs be calibrated back a few decades. Blaming someone else for your problems has been old hat since the early 1980's.

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Simpson "has been made to be something that requires backing tracks to achieve," Hamilton says, adding that the controversy surrounding her "is a weird judgment on something that wasn't supposed to have soul in the first place. That's like complaining about dinner after someone hands you a Snickers bar."

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playing acoustic parts two times in a row EXACTLY the same to give it a natural "chorus". It sounds very cool, and a lot more natural than just adding an electronic chorus, but it isn't easy making sure you play something the same twice in a row.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6322824/

FWIW, I do know that a lot of artists do use vocal tracks to "boost" their sound rather than simply lip sync. Don't know if that was what she was doing.

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Anyone watch SNL on 10/30? They just skewered Ashley and her performance, and not just once either.

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Then they cut the skits down from 36 to 11

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Dignan: Good lord, I'd hate to see the other 25. They must be depressingly unfunny.

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Tony: Did they also investigate why the show continues to suck in recent years?

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To be honest, the show sucks much less in the last year or so than it has for a long time. They've gotten rid of most of their terribly unfunny performers

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To be honest, the show sucks much less in the last year or so than it has for a long time. They've gotten rid of most of their terribly unfunny performers (Ana Gasteyer, Chris Kattan, Cheri Oteri, Colin Quinn, Molly Shannon, and Will Ferrell except the occasions where he was really funny) and the writing is a little more solid than it used to be. Gone seem the days where they'd have a 30 second joke and drag it out for seven minutes.

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The show has always sucked. But at first you were too young to notice, and after that selective memory has made you forget some of the dreck of the past.

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The show has always sucked. But at first you were too young to notice, and after that selective memory has made you forget some of the dreck of the past.

Not at all. I remember that once upon a time, the show varied widely between 25% and 75% good material on any given week. That's when it was good.